From the beginning of her life, Audre Lorde challenged standard meanings of what it meant to be a woman, what it meant to be a lover, what it meant to be black, and what it meant to be a poet. But she also challenged the standard meanings of wo

Ep. 6, Part 2: Deliberate and Afraid of Nothing

Apr 10th, 2019 48m 42s

Warning: This episode contains mention and frank discussion of rape, racism, and violent murder.Writing during the Civil Rights Movement, the AIDS crisis, and in the aftermath of civil rights abuses and tragedies that had been perpetuating th

Ep. 6, Part 1: Deliberate and Afraid of Nothing

Apr 1st, 2019 38m 44s

In this episode we discuss Audre Lorde, a lesbian woman of color who was as bold as she was unapologetic. As a black lesbian woman near-sighted almost to the point of blindness, Lorde faced more civil rights restrictions than could be counted o

Ep. 5, Part 2: Feminism Before Feminism Was Cool

Mar 18th, 2019 48m 43s

Intentionally ignored by her contemporaries and largely forgotten by history, Aemelia Lanyer demonstrates the invisible influence that women, minorities, and the disenfranchised have been dealing with for centuries. While history remembers litt

Ep. 5, Part 1: Feminism Before Feminism Was Cool

Mar 10th, 2019 41m 37s

Writing in the same period as Western canonical greats like Shakespeare, Donne, and Jonson, Aemelia Lanyer was consistently overlooked by her contemporaries and forgotten by later critics and scholars. Lanyer responded to this forced obscurity

Ep. 4, Part 2: Bringing Light to Dark Spaces

Mar 3rd, 2019 44m 57s

Working to reclaim her heritage, traditions, and identity amidst the tumultuous changes that indigenous American populations were forced to deal with in the mid-20th century, Joy Harjo became a force herself: a force of artistic, spiritual pers

Ep. 4, Part 1: Bringing Light to Dark Spaces

Feb 24th, 2019 34m 11s

Critically acclaimed but academically overlooked, Joy Harjo's poetry, music, and performance showcase her experience of her Muscogee (Creek) culture. Speaking and writing with a steady, engaging passion, Harjo delves into cultural and personal

Ep. 3, Part 2: The Disciple of Understanding

Feb 17th, 2019 39m 40s

Writing about Jewish communities post-Holocaust forced Chaim Potok to reckon with a painful, traumatic cultural history that colored the experience of everyone in his life and in his community. This, combined with the advent of Zionism created

Ep. 3, Part 1: The Disciple of Understanding

Feb 11th, 2019 46m 25s

Jewish novelist Chaim Potok devoted his career as an author to understanding the human condition. Even while his community was wracked by the fallout of the Holocaust and the divisive politics of Zionism, Potok worked to show individuals, no ma

Ep. 2, Part 2: The Muse of Lament

Feb 3rd, 2019 33m 48s

Anna Akhmatova was forced into obscurity following the Bolshevik Revolution, but even personal threat by Joseph Stalin could not prevent her from producing visceral, challenging poetry that questions the nature of government, communism, and lov

Ep. 2, Part 1: The Muse of Lament

Jan 21st, 2019 27m 39s

Rediscovered in the late 1980s and early 1990s after decades of censorship and erasure, Anna Akhmatova is now considered to be one of Russia's most gifted poets of the 20th century. Living through the Bolshevik Revolution and the Stalinist Terr

Ep. 1: The Mother of American Poetry

Jan 7th, 2019 55m 28s

By commandeering accepted poetic form and rhetoric, Phillis Wheatley countered every expectation of what it was to be an enslaved black woman in 18th century North America. She embodied the strength, wit, and cunning of all those oppressed indi

Ep. 0: Introduction

Jan 5th, 2019 24m 21s

Hosts Zoe, Kaitlin, and Gee welcome you to “Canon“ Fire, a podcast dedicated to the stories, creations, and histories of literary figures too red-hot for the classic literary canon. In our intro episode, we introduce ourselves, talk about our g

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